Implement LBI

Beverly,

I moved this topic to the Lawson BI forum.
Implementation of LBI can be as small or as large of a project as you want it to be...
In other words, it really depends a lot on your organization, how many modules you use, how many reports you're designing/converting, etc.
Also, whether you want to standardize reports and data access methods (e.g. should all HR reports use common customized views or straight at the tables?, should you use Lawson OLEDB or native RDBMS providers, etc. etc. )

One approach that some clients take is a pilot project to get the software installed and then create a handful of reports. This gets your organization a "quick win" and kicks the tires a bit before embarking on a full-blown implementation.

There are a few consulting organizations targeting LBI, namely JGI, Innovative Information, and Absolute. I know both Lawson and Absolute offer a "quick implementation" service that takes about a week, and includes installation and development of a couple of prototype reports.

We are going to be implementing LBI starting in January. I know for Finance that we are going to do it without consultants. It seems that if you are already reporting, you should be able to fumble through it, at least initially. I have taken almost every Academy class at CUE on LBI and most of the functionality is quite simple to use.

The Reporting Services piece of LBI is pretty intuitive, especially if you've previously worked with LRS or Crystal Enterprise. Some areas where you may get benefit from bringing consultants in is:

1) Hardware/Architecture decisions - For example, Each component on an individual server? Server Specs? Tomcat vs Websphere? Oracle vs SQL vs DB2? Implement Distributed/Load-Balanced RAS to improve uptime and performance?

2) Avoiding "gotchas" - For example, The pre-9.0.2 Rights Import utility will not allow you to upload rights with multiple users, etc.

3) Smart Notifications - This can be an incredibly powerful and flexible tool to create process efficiencies, but can be a challenge for first-timers. This is an area of LBI where documentation is especially lacking.